George Nelson was born in 1908 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA and he died in 1986 in New York at the age of seventy eight. George Nelson is seen as one of the factors in Americans modernism along with Charles and Ray Eames. George Nelson is remembered as being the inventor of beautiful and practical things.

George Nelson graduated from Yale University in 1928 where he had been studying architecture. In 1931 George Nelson graduated with a bachelor degree in fine arts. In 1932 George Nelson won the Rome Prize whilst preparing for the Paris Prize competition.

George Nelson was unable to find a lot of architecture projects, so he decided to turn to interior designing and product designing and graphics.

George Nelson spent a couple of years travelling through Europe whilst being based in Rome. It was in this time that he met some of the modern pioneers. After a couple of years of traveling, George Nelson returned to America where he started to devote himself to writing.

In 1935 George Nelson became the first associate editor of the Architectural Forum, which he continued to do until 1943 when he became a consultant editor.

George Nelson had by 1940 drawn a lot of attention to his work by the innovation of several concepts. In a book, which George Nelson wrote called Tomorrow's House, he introduced the concept of a family room. Another of George Nelson's concepts was the "storagewall". This concept attracted a great deal of interest especially from Herman Miller, so much so that in 1945 he asked George Nelson to be his design director. Herman Miller himself was a fine designer and clockmaker.

The role of design director saw the start of a lot of excellent collaborations between George Nelson and Ray and Charles Eames, Harry Bertois and many others.

One of George Nelson's designs was the Ball Clock. The Ball clock was iconically designed after a night of drinking with friends, although it is still unknown to this day who originally came up with the concept.

George Nelson had a talent for commercial business as well as for designing. George Nelson used these two strong talents to create a success that rewarded him for his life. On the 26th October 1955 George Nelson started Gorge Nelson and Associates.

Herman Miller offered George Nelson a lot of money to become his creative designer. From the start of the business there was money coming in from a wide range of projects. The first office of the company was on 251 Park Avenue South in New York. George Nelson rented this office space together with Howard Miller and Herman Miller. The office took on a young Italian student who was so impressed with the work being carried out in the office that he applied and received a student visa to work in Italy. The student's name was Ettore Sottsass, and he later went on to be a renowned designer within his own right.

From the first day of the George Nelson Associates Inc business to the day that it closed in the mid 1980's it developed a lot of close relationships, and many of these were with the Fortune 500 companies.

Author: Jessica Whittaker